


Of Gods and Monsters, Fragment s1,1: Early March, 2077

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Background Femslash, Background Relationships, Blueberry Lemon Tea, CIA, Espionage, Fucked Up, Gen, MI6 Agents, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, Spy Stuff, Talon Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Talon Emily "Oilliphéist" Gardner, Talon Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Talon!Emily, Talon!Mercy, Talon!Tracer, Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Widowtracer, gingerspider, public opinion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 16:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14217615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: Moira O’Deorain has won. Her rivals within Talon destroyed, her trio of loyal Weapons - the Changed and copper-eyed Tracer, the silver-eyed Oilliphéist, and golden-eyed Widowmaker - at her command.Overwatch now know that Fareeha Amari has been taken, as well - apparently by her wife, Angela, presumably to be remade. The ease with which it was accomplished - a mere three Weapons routing three hundred Helix Security trainees and instructors - has prompted a change in strategy. And as the last Overwatch presence at Watchpoint Gibraltar is finally wound down, Jack "Soldier 76" Morrison sends a warning - and some key video - to two trusted confidants.This story - a side-step/alternate-ending sequel toThe Armourer and the Living Weapon- will be told in a series of eddas, sagas, fragments, texts, and cantos, all of which serve their individual purposes.To follow it as it appears, please subscribe to the series.





	Of Gods and Monsters, Fragment s1,1: Early March, 2077

Ana Amari stood guard - the last watch at Watchpoint Gibraltar - as Athena relocated herself to her new, more mobile hardware, to depart as soon as she could be made ready. Inside, Jack Morrison sat watching two screens in a darkened room that had been a communications centre, not all that long ago.

"And how did you gain possession of this video?" came a heavily-disguised voice from the left monitor, the screen of which displayed only the codeword LEITER. The codeword didn't originate from the other side of the connection; it was Morrison's own designation.

"I can't tell you that," he said, knowing his own voice was being deeply disguised. "I can only tell you that we haven't edited it. You're seeing what we saw."

"Do you have any way of confirming its provenance?" came another heavily-disguised voice from the right monitor, the screen of which displayed only the letter M, another of Morrison's little jokes.

"No. But it matches what we suspected."

"Confirmation bias is a terrible thing - never forget that." There was a pause. "Widowmaker's not visible in any frame. There's no proof the sniper is that particular Talon agent - or any Talon agent," LEITER said. "Only that they had a sniper."

"An extraordinary one," Morrison noted.

"Granted. Now, this other actor - Emily Gardner, a.k.a. Oilliphéist, you said?" asked M. "We have no record of her at all - Talon or otherwise."

"I know. She's a recent addition to their arsenal."

"What we do have," M continued, "is one well-known Overwatch agent - the bloody poster girl, to be blunt - engaged in some frankly terrifying violations of the PETRAS act, and possibly other laws as well, and another former agent - one known to be critical of Overwatch, one on the record as being against the recall - behaving strangely, certainly, but not acting in violence."

_There're reasons we're not taking this to the press, you idiots_ , Morrison thought, grumpily. "Yes. But look at the big picture."

"I am. Ziegler looks pasted in," LEITER said. "I'm not saying she is, but that's what it looks like. Smiling, laughing, waving - that's not someone in a combat environment, that's someone having a good time at the beach somewhere. It doesn't fit."

"I'm sure," Morrison acknowledged, "that a couple of dozen people in Oasis will confirm she never left town that day."

"Most certainly," M agreed. "It'd help if the videographer had acknowledged her presence... but she didn't. She calls out three, not four, attackers."

"But you're sure this is real," LEITER said, "and unedited."

"Positive," Morrison insisted. "Lena Oxton has been brainwashed, as Amélie Lacroix was before her, and is working with Talon. So is Angela Ziegler. And we should assume that Fareeha Amari will join them, soon."

"After that fiasco in London," M said, "No one outside the intelligence community is going to see this as anything other than more Overwatch adventurism. Another violation of PETRAS, just showing how dangerous you lot are. You realise that."

"I get it. I know. But..." He couldn't say he knew them, and that they knew him, and that he wouldn't bring them anything so explosive without being sure. He wasn't, honestly, sure what else he could say. "But now you have what I have. For whatever that's worth."

"Yes," M replied. "And that's appreciated. Let us work it from our end for a bit. Maybe we'll come up with something a bit more... attributable."

"Lay low," LEITER agreed. "PETRAS aside, London aside - you're still a trusted source. Thanks for the tip - we'll dig. But for now, take a vacation. Someplace quiet."

Jack looked up as he heard Athena's transport launch from the pad, and saw Ana Amari appear at the doorway. "It's time," she said.

"I think I'll do exactly that," he said. "Soldier 76 - out."

On the far side of the dropped connections, across separate windows, the CIA agent referred to as LEITER and the MI6 agent referred to as M chatted in heavily-encrypted text.

"What do you think?" CIA asked. "Seems kind of nuts, but he's been reliable enough in the past. And that video - Tracer... she's terrifying, but she doesn't look real. Her eyes are brown, not whatever that orange-y color is, and she doesn't move right - it's like she's too smooth, too quick."

"Looks like dodgy CGI to me," MI6 agreed. "Like bad animation - whether it is or not."

"And what happened to that chronal accelerator of hers? It doesn't match what's on file."

"We have sources saying Oxton got picked up by Oasis's security services a month ago," replied MI6. "If it is her, and not a fake - maybe it's related."

"We heard about that - we have a photo of her at one of their training facilities."

"We have video," MI6 replied. "Let me pull it up... oh! Well. Same new accelerator. That much checks out, then."

_Buncha showoffs_ , the CIA agent thought, before returning to the keyboard. "So... what happened, do you think? Oasis's security service and Helix work together regularly. Why would they take a swing at Helix like that?"

"Maybe Helix brought a little too much pressure on the wrong someone in the Oasis Ministry of Defence, and needed a reminder of who's in charge. Wouldn't be the first time."

"Maybe. Or... could Oasis - or someone in the Oasis government - be sponsoring Talon?" mused CIA.

"That pack of useless academics? Not likely. What would they get out of it?"

"I don't know. But O'Deorain was Blackwatch, which connects back to Talon. We should keep an eye on her."

"Already do, of course. Have since that first paper." MI6 scrolled around in the video, finding the blurry half-shots of Tracer's ground partner. "That Oilliphéist character - why you think she's _blue_?"

"Who even knows - those eggheads get up to a _lot_ of weird shit... wow, okay, SIGINT says an 'Emily Gardner' is O'Deorain's _niece_. Do you think..."

"Bloody hell - she did that to _family?_ God only knows what that woman must do to her friends..." There was a brief pause in the text. "I think we might should take this seriously."

"Yeah. I do too. I'll see what I can find out from our end."

"Brilliant. Catch you up at the usual pub in London next month?"

"Looking forward to it - it's your turn to buy, don't forget."

"See you then."

**Author's Note:**

> This Saga will have a _second_ fragment, to be posted 24 hours after this one.
> 
> To follow this story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual eddas or sagas.


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